


Of Cultural Misunderstandings

by bonsaiScribbler



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Horror, M/M, Submission, Violence, dub-con
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-12-15
Updated: 2012-02-29
Packaged: 2017-10-27 09:22:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/294184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bonsaiScribbler/pseuds/bonsaiScribbler
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The humans try to settle down a hurt and panicked Karkat. They know nothing about the trolls's submission reflex; and mistake submission for trust. Things go wrong.</p><p>Gamzee doesn't like his moirail hurt. Not one bit.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> None of the characters belong to me.
> 
> This is a response to a prompt of the homestuck kink meme:
> 
> I have this misunderstanding in my head, where a human tries to get a hurt!panicked!Karkat to settle down. By grabbing for his throat or the back of his neck to keep him from biting. And thinking when he relaxes it means "okay, thanks for getting my attention and getting me to get control of myself back", and maybe "I'm starting to trust you to touch me" (whee! pettings! cuddles!), and he thinks, as any troll would, that it means "spread your legs and maybe I won't break your neck".

“Show me!“ John demanded, trying to catch up with the other and grab Karkat's hand. He had followed Karkat to his respite block after the troll had a mock fight with Dave, because he was sure that he had seen Dave actually hit Karkat even though the troll insisted that this was not the case

“What?“ Karkat snarled and pulled back, baring his teeth at the other.

“Your wound. I saw you holding your side. And you are favouring your left side.“ John replied, taking a step forward and cornering Karkat against the wall. “I'll fix it up real quick.“

A hiss escaped Karkat as he tried to move away, but John was already there, blocking his way. Karkat was about to tell him where to stick it when a hand moved to pull up his sweater. A sudden panic almost blinded him when he realised that John would see his blood colour, would see what a freak he was. Instantly he lashed out, pushing John to the ground. He was about to make a run for it when a hand came out of nowhere and clasped around his wrist. A strong pull and he tumbled against someone's chest.

”Vantas, what do you think you're doing?“ Dave's voice betrayed no emotion as he held the troll in place. He could see that the troll was worked up about something, but all that mattered now was that the tiny bundle of anger had shoved his friend to the ground who was only trying to help. “I come here, out of the goodness of my heart, to check on you and you try to maim my friend?”

“Let go of me or I swear to god I'll tear you a new waste chute.” Karkat replied in a low growl and twisted against Dave's hold. 

Unimpressed, Dave strengthened his hold and dragged the troll over to where John was sitting on the ground, looking confused as to what just happened. With a single shove he pushed Karkat into John's lap and told him to apologize, earning himself an angry glare. 

“Apologize.” He repeated and grabbed Karkat's neck, when the other twisted away from John, forcing him to look at John. Karkat felt his breath hitch and tried to grab onto Dave's hand, but could not pry his fingers open. He dragged his claws across the sensitive skin, which only led to Dave tightening his grip. 

“Watch your claws. You might hurt him.” John warned and held onto Karkat wrists. Seething Karkat struggled against the combined strength of Dave and John, but found himself unable to move. Red began to creep into the edge of his vision, his blood pusher was beating so hard that he feared it would jump right out of his chest, and before he knew what happened he leaned forward and buried his teeth in John's hands. A shriek told him that yes, this had hurt a lot. Enough for John to let go of his hand and for Dave to loosen his hold in shock. 

With a panic-induced speed Karkat took off for the door, the only thing in his vision. He had almost reached it when a hand grabbed him by the back of his neck, and he stumbled, causing him to crash face-first into the door. Candy red blood began to run from his nose and he could taste it in his mouth. Now they would see his mutant blood and all would be over. 

Not once did he stop to consider that humans were different from trolls, but at this point it didn't matter. With a snarl he lashed out and tried to hurt Dave. 

“Dave, careful. He's hurt.” 

“He's a little wiggler. That's what he is.” said Dave, right next to Karkat's ear and used his larger body to pin the troll against the door. He could feel the troll shaking, probably with rage. “Just what do you think you're doing, Vantas?”

John was by his side moments later, reaching for Karkat but pulled back when the troll snapped his teeth at him. When he took a closer look he saw blood staining Karkat's side, so he tried to pull the sweater up again, resulting in Karkat throwing a complete hissyfit. Struggling against Dave, growling and snarling, kicking and biting. 

Figuring that it was useless to try and use logic on the troll he looked around until he found a hideous looking scarf, looking like something Kanaya would have given Karkat, and went over to grab it from the table. Once he tested its strength, he returned and quietly told Dave to move. When he had enough space he took hold of Karkat's arms and held him in place while Dave wrapped the scarf around Karkat's wrists. 

The growling and biting ceased and then the troll fell completely quiet. Thinking that this was a good sign, John beckoned Dave to lead Karkat over to where some kind of furniture, that looked almost like a couch, was placed. When they were seated, John uncaptachalogued one of the first aid kits he had received from Jade and pulled Karkat's sweater over his head. Since they could not completely remove the sweater, because of the scarf, they left it dangling around his wrists. Dave took hold of Karkat's chin and forced him to look him in the eyes, or in Dave's case, shades.

“You will hold still now, Vantas, or I will sic Terezi on you.” Dave told Karkat and was pleased to hear the trolls breath hitch and felt him still, thinking that he finally got the message across. 

“There's a good troll.” he whispered, and ran his hands through said trolls hair. He knew he was being petty, but the troll had seriously tested his patience. He was perfectly well aware that he had hurt the other in their mock fight and had allowed him to walk away after the battle to keep his pride intact. If he had immediately checked on the troll, the other would have felt humiliated and that would have led to even more fights and more trouble, but in retrospect Dave thought that it might have been the better choice. If he had taken care of the wound immediately his fingers would not have been scratched up by sharp claws and John's wouldn't be bleeding from coming into too sharp teeth. 

Oblivious to what Dave had whispered to Karkat, John moved to clean Karkat's wound which was not as deep as it had seemed, but still bled a lot. A soft hiss escaped Karkat when John put pressure on the wound and anesthesized the wound. Being on their own for a while with absolutely no emergency facility whatsoever, had caused the kids to pick up some medical skills of their own and, while they were not the best doctors around, they knew how to clean and stitch up wounds. 

When John began cleaning the wound Karkat gave a little jump and squirmed a bit, but when Dave made a warning noise the troll tried his best not to move, except for occasional shivers. John figured that exhaustion was finally catching up with Karkat and continued his work. 

A soft hum made him look up while he was wrapping Karkat's wounds, and saw Karkat leaning close to Dave, who, at some point, had pulled the troll half-way onto his lap and held onto his shoulders, in case the other decided to struggle again. Then he noticed Karkat baring his neck to Dave and give another soft hum. Inwardly John began to cheer, they had finally won the trolls trust. Sure it had taken a while and involved some rough handling, but he was certain that Karkat had realised that they meant no harm when they had started taking care of his wound.   
Initially Dave seemed a bit surprised at this show of submission, but then moved one hand to rest on top of Karkat's head softly petting him in a rare show of affection. He assumed that this show of submission had cost a lot of effort from the other and he was not about to let that go unrewarded, even though it felt wrong to pet the troll like some sort of, well, pet. When the cancer gave another soft hum and pushed against his hand Dave simply presumed that this was some sort of weird troll culture thing. John on the other hand found it simply endearing and settled behind Karkat to pet the others hair, effectively trapping the troll between Dave and him. Small shivers ran down Karkats spine and John could feel him shaking. It had to be hard for the troll to trust them, much less show affection. 

Unconciously he leaned in closer and pressed a kiss against Karkat's neck making him tense up. John could feel Dave's eyes on him, probably wondering whatever happened to “not a homosexual”, though John could not explain his actions. The thought of Karkat voluntarily submitting to them made his body heat up. Never one to be bested Dave leaned in and kissed Karkat, burying his hands in Karkat's hair. In return John began running his hands up and down Karkat's exposed torso, causing the troll to shiver even harder, and give a low whine. It was an interesting change from going into a mad frenzy to a shivering mess between the two of them. But John figured that, if touching and petting, or whatever, helped their friend relax it was well worth it, and Dave must have thought the same, because he kept kissing the troll and murmuring soft words into his ear when he pulled away. John couldn't make out what he said, but Karkat gave another soft hum in response, and saw Karkat lean into Dave to press as close as possible.

How this turned into sloppy make-outs neither Dave nor John could explain, and they also wouldn't bother with it, since the troll between them twisted as if he could not decide who he wanted to be closer to. It was incredibly cute to John, and yet also an incredible turn on. Dave could not decide whether to be turned on or laugh at the sheer surreality of the situation. When Karkat pressed close to him again Dave decided that turned on would be his best option now, and focused back on teasing and pleasing the troll. 

Karkat had long resigned to the situation and let the humans do what they wanted. If he did that, maybe, just maybe, the humans would tell no one about his blood colour and he would be save, or so he thought. Hands were touching him all over his body; lips were pressed against his spine, his neck, his chest, everywhere; teeth nipped on his lips, ears, neck. Maybe he would have appreciated the attention at a different time, back when everything was still alright, but now it left him shaking and hoping that they would get this over with and leave. He knew what highblood trolls did to lowblood trolls and this was pretty much the same situation, and he had no right to fight back. If he submitted, he might come out of this unscathed. He would be fine, yet his body couldn't stop shaking, black spots kept dancing in and out of his vision and his blood pusher was beating so hard that he had trouble controlling his breathing. When a hand finally reached into his pants, he was almost relieved. Thinking that all would be over soon. 

Suddenly noise startled Karkat and then Dave slumped forward, and clutching his head. When Karkat looked up to see what happened there was another Dave, a future one maybe?, standing behind Dave holding what looked like one of Gamzee's clubs. The future Dave then reached out and pulled Karkat out from between John and Dave. Wrapping his arms protectively around Karkat.

“What are you doing?” John asked in confusion. Future Dave gave him a long hard look and then helped Karkat to pull on his sweater and cut the scarf in two.

“Keeping you from making the same mistake I did and ruining everything.”


	2. Chapter 2

Dave rubbed his head and tried to focus on his future self. John, for one, was busy staring at Karkat, who looked torn between clinging to his rescuer and running as far away as possible. Honestly, John had no idea what was wrong. Karkat had clearly been enjoying himself, going so far as to make those cute little noises. 

“What did we do?” John asked and looked at future Dave in confusion. The look he got in return made his blood run cold. It wasn't so much that it was anger in future Dave's eyes, but sadness and   
longing. 

“Let me take care of this first, then I will explain to you just what you, I mean we, did wrong.” future Dave said, and guided Karkat to the door. “I'm sorry. Very sorry for what happened. I'm sorry for my past self to flip out at you, because, let's face it, that was unnecessary and dumb.” 

For a moment Dave looked like he was about to say something, but decided against it and just kept rubbing his head. 

“I'm sorry for hurting you.” Future Dave said to Karkat, who was frozen in front of the door, staring disbelievingly at future Dave. “It's true. I'm totally, unironically sorry for doing that, and the rough treatment in general. Well, not me per-se, but my past self. He has the hots for John, and when he saw him on the ground after you shoved him, he lost his cool, so to speak.”

Now it was John's turn to stare at future Dave in utter disbelieve, but when he steadily returned the stare, John turned his attention to Dave, who was trying his hardest to keep his poker face. 

“You might want to check out that wound, some time soon.” Future Dave told John, who clearly had no idea what the other was talking about. “Near your ear. Your bleeding. It's not bad, but it scared me, us.”

“Why the fuck did you come here?” Karkat asked, speaking up for the first time, since John and Dave had subdued him. “To apologise? For what? It's your right...”

For a split second future Dave perfect poker face slipped and John, as well as Dave, caught another glimpse of the sadness and longing obviously displayed on his face.

“No. No, it's not.” future Dave said, and gently led Karkat out the door. “I'll take you to your moirail, because you sure as hell need it.” He turned to Dave and John. “And when I'm back, we'll talk. In the meantime think about it for a bit.”

After he was left, John and Dave continued to sit there in silence, both at a loss as to what happened. Dave hated to admit it, but his future self was right. He had overreacted, and had been unnecessarily rough with Karkat, who had obviously been terrified. Now that he thought about it, he wondered why Karkat had given in so quickly after his hands were bound. While Dave contemplated what went wrong with Karkat, John's mind was still trying to absorb the piece of information future Dave had offered.

“Sooo... you have the hots for me?” John asked, pointedly staring at Dave.

“Really smooth, dude.” Dave said, but did neither deny or agree to it. He had long come to terms with John's “Not a homosexual”-attitude, and while he did care greatly about his friend, he had accepted that they would always just be friends. What happened with Karkat today, however, had changed the situation, leaving Dave confused and not knowing how to react.  
Karkat was a completely different matter. With Karkat, Dave knew what he got. A tiny bundle of anger that hid his true feelings behind curses and angry ranting. It was ironic that Dave felt drawn to Karkat, when he was so different from John. Maybe that was the reason, that he was so different. A polar opposite to the happy-go-lucky Egbert. Or maybe it was the fact that Dave could relate to the other boy, who, just like Dave, hid behind his mask and tried to keep everyone at a distance, yet was never able to actually do so. If either Dave or Karkat were to be left without their friends, they would be nothing, that much was clear to Dave.

“Dave? Yoohoo!” John had started waving his hand in front of Dave's face, as the other failed to respond. “I know you're in there.”

“Yes, he is. He's just trying to figure out his feelings.” said a smooth voice from the entrance, and John almost visibly jumped at the sight of future Dave. 

Dave didn't know why his future self kept spilling all his secrets, and while he was not too happy about it, there was something about future Dave that made Dave think, that something happened to turn the other so desperate to tell John everything. Like everything would come to an end in a second – oh.

“I see you're starting to figure it out.” Future Dave said to Dave, and moved to check on John's wound. “Hm... it's not deep. But seriously, Egderp, how did you get that wound from being shoved down by a very, very tiny troll?”

The irony and cynism are back, but both boys can tell that something is wrong – obviously, since future Dave came to their time to prevent it – and let future Dave fix John's wound without interrupting or asking anything. 

“I guess you want me to explain now, huh? Wondering why I clubbed you over the head, right?” Future Dave, but Dave shrugged.

“It's cool. You had your reasons.” Dave replied. “But I'd like to hear them now.”

“Alright.” Future Dave and sat down in front of Dave and John. “First of all, I hit you because I was mad at me. I saw you doing what I had done, and I got angry that you, well, I, had not realised what was going on.”

“Uhm... 'scuse me, but what was going on?” John asked. Future Dave once again stared at him, but this time there was no sadness or longing radiating off of him, only a grim atmosphere around him.

“Well, let me start by explaining the troll culture to you.” future Dave replied, and both John and Dave looked at him with confusion written over their faces. “You know how trolls are a violent race, right? Fighting, killing, only the strongest survive. When a troll is subdued in battle the victor has every right to do with him what he wants, be it killing, keeping him as a slave, or raping him. The loser has no rights, nothing. He has to submit in order to live.”

“I don't get it.” John said. “What does that have to do with us?”

Dave started to look pale, putting the pieces together. 

“We won, Egderp. We subdued him in battle, even if that wasn't a real one.” Dave said, and John started to understand. A look of horror crossing his face. “He submitted, because he thought we would have killed him otherwise.”  
“Oh my god...” John looked like he was about to be violently sick. “We almost raped him.”

Neither future nor present Dave said anything just looked at John in a mix of pity and disgust. Disgust, because neither of them had noticed what was going on, and pity, because John was a good person, he would have never done anything like that, had he known the consequences.

“Yes. Yes, you did.” Future Dave said, voice cracking. “But you didn't. You can still fix things.”

“So you came here to make sure things would be okay?” Dave asked, already knowing that there was more to the story. He had not forgotten the words is future counterpart had said, when he dragged Karkat away from them.

“Yeah. That's pretty much it.” Future Dave answered, but knew that both of them were now expecting the truth. “You want to hear my story now, huh?”

“Okay, so this is how it goes. Unlike the two of you, my John and I, we had no one to stop us.”  
John had turned as white as a sheet, and looked torn between listening and running away.   
“So we didn't. Karkat didn't complain, in fact, he egged us on. I think that must have something to do with the troll culture, but Kanaya never got to finish her explanation.”

“Anyway, we didn't stop. Both of us, we... we had sex with him. No, we raped him. We didn't know what we did, but we did it. He was trapped between the two of us with nowhere to go, and no one to ask for help. We were both hot and bothered, and Karkat was not fighting back or anything, even egging us on, so we thought that everything was alright. It was a bit weird, how Karkat went from a screaming and fighting to subdued and seemingly horny. So, we continued to do what you did. But we went further. Got him undressed, held him down, raped him, and then shit hit the fan.”

Future Dave's voice was bitter, obviously regretting what had happened, but unable to change things back.

“John and I, we didn't know anything about troll culture, only some random things, like the bucket stuff 'n such. But there's this thing about the trolls quadrants. Kanaya called it troll serendipity.”

Comprehension dawned on Dave and he remembered who Karkat's moirail was. The weird clown, the psycho.

“I can see that you're figuring it out.” future Dave said quietly. “And you're right. Gamzee found out. Karkat must have gone straight to his respite block. I don't think that he told Gamzee anything. He was probably too scared or too out of it. But that serendipity thing? It took Gamzee less than ten minutes to arrive at John's and my location... He didn't say anything, only stared at us with that psycho stare of his and smiled. And then he asked as if we had any clue what we had done. And John, that naïve idiot, -” the words were spoken without any malice. “- told Gamzee that Karkat had freaked out so we had calmed him down. It didn't need a genius to figure out what we had done. John looked still disheveled, and both of us reeked of sex. Karkat didn't smell any better, I guess. And looking back, I think he might have been crying as he left.

Both John and Dave swallowed and shifted uncomfortably, thinking about what would have happened, had future Dave not arrived to stop them. They would have done the same, without knowing what they were doing to their friend. 

“So, Gamzee stared at us. But didn't do anything. He just left.” future Dave said. “And we didn't think anything of it. We still didn't know what we had done.”  
“But Gamzee was very willing to make us pay for it anyway.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading.
> 
> The next chapter may or may not contain graphic violence and sex...


	3. Chapter 3

 

 

“But why didn't he just tell us?” John asked. “We would have apologized and... and somehow made it up to Karkat.”

 

“Think Egderp.” Dave replied and massaged his temple. He felt a headache coming, and he had no one to blame for it, but himself. “Technically, we won Karkat. Even if we forced him, it was in our... rights.”

 

Future Dave nodded solemnly, thankful for his past self's quick uptake. “He's right. We didn't know what we did back then, hell, if we had we wouldn't have done it in the first place, but by troll etiquette or whatever, we were within our rights. Theoretically speaking we had done nothing wrong.”

 

“Besides, how would they have made it up to him? Apologized and all would have been well?” Dave said, shaking his head. Knowing very well, that there was nothing they could have done to make it up to Karkat, nothing. He only hoped that it was not too late to make it up to their Karkat.

 

John was getting paler by the minute, and Dave felt pity for his friend, but they both had done something wrong and had to deal with the consequences. John was one of the nicest and most caring people he knew, and he felt bad for his friend for suffering through this, but he knew they deserved it. He only wondered if his future self's coming here had really changed things.

 

“So, what happened?” John asked, voice shaking ever so slightly.

 

“Well, since we didn't know what was wrong we simply assumed that Gamzee had come to figure out what had happened, and when he left without a word, we thought he was being his weird-ass clown self.” Future Dave said. Slowly a dull pain began to stir in his stomach, almost like he was sick, but he knew that it was a mixture of fear and anger starting to rise up. Future Dave had always believed to be nearly invincible, at least in the physical sense, but the juggalo had shown him that, even though Gamzee was unable to kill him, he was able to leave him with terrible wounds, none of them physical. “Karkat would have never acted against us, and he probably would have kept Gamzee from doing what he was planning, hadn't he been so out of it. Heck, even if he hadn't been, he wouldn't have been able to. Gamzee knew we had won Karkat fair and square by troll standards, even if it's really fucked up to say you won someone... anyway, he was so angry, so furious... and by troll etiquette it was his right to bring down his moirail's attackers.”

 

“Life went on. No one knew what happened except for Karkat, Gamzee, John and me. Back then we didn't know that we had messed up, so we thought everything was just peachy.” Future Dave said. “After all, we had managed to calm Karkat down, shown him some good lovin'” - at this Future Dave's tone turned bitter, and he looked like he had swallowed something nasty - “and his moirail was there to support him, should things go wrong again.”

 

“And shit went nasty, didn't it?” Dave said, sounding more a statement than a question. He knew that Gamzee was fiercely possessive and protective of his moirail. He had seen what the clown did to one of the monsters that had managed to land a minor hit on Karkat. It hadn't been pretty.

 

“Sure did.” Future Dave replied, and swallowed, trying to calm his nerves. “It started out with little things. For one, we didn't see Karkat as often as we used to, and when we did he was very polite and a bit too quiet, but we didn't think much of it. John thought that Karkat was just being shy, and I agreed, since Karkit-” Future Dave cleared his throat. - “Karkat was suddenly unable to look us in the eye without blushing. And Gamzee never strayed from his side, if he wasn't right next to him, he'd be hiding in the shadows. We both found that exceptionally creepy, but it was Gamzee after all.”

 

Both Dave and John gave a weak chuckle at this. Gamzee was a lot of things, when stoned he was chill and actually quite cool, but when he wasn't... creepy didn't even begin to cover it.

 

“So yeah. Everything seemed to be normal. Then suddenly our things started vanishing. One of my records vanished, John's prank stuff, and things like that, and they would turn up at the oddest places. In the beginning we figured that the other was playing pranks on us. You know that's nothing out of the usual.” Future Dave said with a weak smile.

 

A shudder ran down Dave's spine, and he made a mental note to keep track of his belongings. Out of the corner of his eye he could see John nodding to himself, making the same note. None of this was going to happen to them, Dave decided. In the worst case scenario he would protect John and Karkat, and take out Gamzee, if necessary. It felt wrong to even think that, since the clown was only acting according to his moirail duty at that time, but he was not willing to give up without trying to set things right.

 

“Then pins and needles started to appear in our beds, our shoes, our clothing. We both got angry at each other, 'cause being the numbskulls that we were, we still hadn't figured out that there was no way the other would have played pranks like that. Around that time Karkat stopped hanging out with all others too. Gamzee said that he wasn't feeling well, and I guess he was right. Kanaya went to check on him once, and came back saying that he looked awful and completely out of it, that he had barely recognized her. Maybe it was some kind of reaction to human... fluids. Or all the stress catching up to him, I don't know.” Future Dave said and removed his shades to rub his tired eyes.

 

John stood up and rummaged through his sylladex. Finally he found a bottle of painkillers and held it out to Future Dave. Clearly, Future Dave thought, the pain he was in, was written all over his face. But he shook his head, declining the pills. He needed to be in his right mind while he was telling them what happened. Pills would only take the edge off.

 

“Anyway, things started to get out of hand, and we both started to get really angry at each other. Flipping our shit over the smallest things. I had never seen John mad before, and I guess, Karkat being sick and all this shit happening, is...was a pretty good reason. You're a sensitive guy, John, and your future self, even if he didn't understand what was wrong, had picked up on the tension and reacted badly to it. He always wanted people to be happy, and when things started to get messed up, he didn't know how to deal with it.” Future Dave said. He let out a deep breath, he wasn't aware of holding, and suddenly things made a lot more sense to him. Back at his time he hadn't understood why John had reacted so badly, why he had lashed out at Dave. But now it was obvious. John had been unhappy with himself, and had not known how to react to Dave's stoic poker face during the escalating pranks. Instead of talking to him, he had kept his worries about their friendship and Karkat to himself and bottled everything up inside of him until the anger erupted, and he turned on the person closest to him. And that had usually been Dave.

 

“It didn't take long for the others to notice that there was something really wrong. Rose and Jade tried to mediate and help us get along again, but we were both to stubborn. Besides, we never talked about why we were mad at each other. Maybe we mentioned the pranks, but never what.. what happened with Karkat, 'cause John still was “no-homo” and I.. I don't know. I didn't think it was any of their business. I guess that talking about it could have helped, but back then my stupid pride was always in the way of things. If I had just sucked it up and apologized, or just fucking asked what was wrong, things wouldn't have gotten this bad.” It felt good to talk about it, better than talking to Rose. Maybe because there was no one in the world he trusted more than John, and his past self. Maybe because the two of them understood the situation he had been in. Maybe because he was able to keep them from falling apart this time.

 

“So yeah, things were fucked up and we were too dumb to take care of them. I guess that was Gamzee's plan all along. To break us apart. And it worked really well. We didn't even talk to each other anymore until suddenly Jade went missing.” Dave explained.

 

Startled John moved to grab Future Dave by the shoulders, but stopped himself.

 

“Why did she disappear?” John asked, hoping that it was because of space-time-shenanigans, but inside his heart he knew that she hadn't left voluntarily.

 

Future Dave shook his head, and avoided John's eyes.

 

“We don't know.” he said. “I guess it was Gamzee who took her, but we never found her.”

 

John was about to ask something when Future Dave raised his hand to shush him.

 

“It...it started...” He swallowed. “One morning John found fingers on his pillow. They were Jade's.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Took me a while, but here's the next chapter.  
> I re-wrote some parts in the first and second chapter, because I didn't like how violent Dave seemed to be. Feel free to read the first two chapters again, only with minor changes.  
> Thank you all for waiting so long.

There was a moment of silence, just before John abruptly stood up and left the room. Dave moved to follow, but was held back by his future self.

“Leave him be. You know he needs it.” Future Dave said, and Dave paused to take a good look at his counterpart. The idea of John finding his ecto-sister's fingers on his pillow, the idea of what might have been done to Jane, made his stomach churn. But what was worse, was that he had no idea what happened to John. 

“Is he dead?” he asked. “Your John. Is he dead?”

“I wish he was.” Future Dave replied. The answer scared Dave more than he had expected. He had thought that his future self had come back, because the psycho clown had killed John. But if John was alive, why was his future self here? What in the hell had happened?

“I'm going to explain it to you, once John comes back.” Future Dave said, looking at his past self. Naturally, he knew what was going on in the other's head, he'd be thinking the same things, were he in Dave's place. 

All of a sudden he shook his head, surprising Dave.

“No. Maybe it's better if John doesn't know some things.” Future Dave explained. 

“Egderp is all kinds of tender-hearted at the wrong moments.” said Dave with a little chuckle, but without any kind of malice. 

Future Dave nodded, and cleared his throat, indicating that he wanted to continue. When his past self gave a quick nod, he braced himself for what he was going to remember, and tell, next.

“So Jade was gone. At first we assumed that she was doing some kind of Witch of Space duties, or something equally whacky.” Future Dave explained. “But she didn't return. She was gone for more than a week, when Rose got really impatient and worried. John and I... we were both busy being stuck-up and stubborn, heck, busy being plain angry. We still hadn't figured it out, as I said earlier. And when we did, it was too late.”

He paused, and cleared his throat again. He didn't want to remember. Living through it once had been enough, but he had to tell his past self what happened. He had to. He wanted to keep him and John safe and sound. And Karkat sane. 

“As I was saying, a week after she was gone, Rose got worried. Jane, or who we thought was Jane, had been keeping in touch via Pesterchum. But suddenly the messages got weird, paranoid. She kept mentioning that things weren't right, that she was being followed, that she was sure someone was going to kill her. Of course, we thought Bec Noir was behind all that. We got our act together to gather a search party and find our very own witch,“ - he took another deep breath. - “but we never made it off the meteor. Rose was hit with a vision. Someone was killing people left and right on the meteor. She couldn't tell who it was, but we were all convinced that it had to be Bec Noir. Who else would try to kill us, right?” he asked with some sort of twisted irony that made Dave's stomach clench.

He had never stopped to think that they had enemies, besides Bec Noir and the whole damn universe. He had simply assumed that they would be safe on the tiny meteor. He knew that Gamzee had gone insane and killed some of his friends, but he also knew that Karkat had him under control. He couldn't wrap his head around how naïve he had been. It was so simple. Something happened to Karkat, and Gamzee would go back to being a trigger-happy psycho. 

“Yep... never thought of that one too.” Future Dave told Dave. “Funny, right? We've both been told what happened here, but we never thought that there'd be danger within our own ranks.”

“Why would there be? It was supposed to be the big happy meeting, where everyone got to meet their quadrant, friend or whatever, and we would gather our stuff and rise our pitchforks against the evil overlord.” Dave remarked with some sort of dry humor, and his future self gave a little snort.

“Yeah, didn't turn out as planned though.” he said. “We kinda gave up on Jade for a moment. We had to. We needed to check the meteor first, and since we didn't know where to start, we were pretty much bummed. We wanted to search for her. John was tearing through the place, hoping that she'd pop up somewhere. Rose and Terezi were trying to see, if they could get a vision. Sollux was doing his thing, and Kanaya tried to keep everyone calm.”

“What about Gamzee and Karkat?” Dave wanted to know, but Future Dave just shook his head.

“No idea. They were gone. I guess, they were holing up in Gamzee's hive-room-thing.” he replied. “We didn't even notice. With Jade being gone and the threat of Bec coming to our meteor, we were pretty busy. Pretty dumb, too. When her fingers turned up, we automatically assumed that it must have been Bec, who killed her. Makes sense, doesn't it? Big Bad coming to kill us all.”

“Yeah, but I don't think he's much for sneak attacks. You know, leaving body parts, and waiting for us to piss our pants.” Dave said, and got a nod from his future counterpart.

“Right. But we were really messed up at that time. We didn't think about it. We just blindly assumed.” 

“And then what?” A new voice interrupted them. They both turned to see a pale-faced John standing in the doorway. “We just lost our heads and abandoned Jade?”

“No way in hell, John.” Future Dave said. “No way we'd abandon anyone. We went nuts searching for her. Trying to watch each other's backs. Trying to figure out what the hell was going on.”

“You said you didn't find her.” John said in a small voice. “Do you think she still is?”

“For her sake, I hope she's not.” Future Dave answered. He pitied John. The other boy had grown to love his ecto-sister like his second self, and the thought of her being dead... he didn't want to think about it. 

“How can you even say that?” John asked with barely concealed fury. “How can you wish someone to be dead?”

“Egderp. Can it.” Dave said. “Let him explain. This is what got us into trouble in the first place. Not talking to each other.”

“She's had her fingers cut off and god knows what.” Future Dave said. “Gamzee is a grade-A psycho. I don't want to know what he's done to her. I just hope she didn't have to suffer for long.”

“I... I'm sorry.” John said in a small voice. He knew that Future Dave wasn't to blame for her disappearance. Well, he sort of was, but so was Future John. And he knew that Dave loved Jade like a sister, so it must have been just as hard for him to halt the search for her.

“'s okay.” Future Dave said. “You want to wait outside while I tell Dave the rest?”

“No. I need to know what happened.” John replied, looking serious.

“Alright. We were looking for places where we could hide, or where Bec could hide. Or just creepy spaces, that needed to be checked on. So we searched the whole meteor up and down, but found no sign of Bec. After we were convinced that there was no way that he could hide from us, and that we had an escape route, we made plans for a search party again. But the evening before the search started, John went to bed and found fingers on his pillow.” Future Dave said, watching as the others in the room grew pale, even though Dave tried not to show it. “He freaked out. Completely. He though it was a prank from me. He came into my room and yelled at me, told me that it wasn't fucking funny to do things like that when his sister had gone missing. And suddenly everything became weird. I had no idea what he was talking about and tried to defend myself.”

“But I didn't buy it?” John asked, looking troubled. He couldn't believe that he would ever distrust his friend.

“You did. I got mad and told you, I mean him, that I did nothing, while he played all these pranks on me. He just stopped and looked at me for a minute. He stared for a while and didn't say a single word. Then he told me about the pranks that had happened to him, and asked me if I would swear, that it hadn't been me. And I did. After all, I had nothing to feel guilty for.” Future Dave said. “It took us a while to figure out that someone had been playing games on us. We went to the lab and showed the others the fingers. Sollux ran a scan, and they were Jade's. I don't have to mention that Rose didn't take it well. She was close to going grimdark again, but Kanaya calmed her down, said that she couldn't help her that way. You have to appreciate Kanaya's ability for calming people down.”

Dave looked at John, exchanging glances. They would have to keep an eye on Kanaya and Rose. Jane as well. They should probably keep an eye on everyone. The conditions they were living under at the moment were less than favorable, and they already messed up once. They only hoped that they could prevent the worst from happening. If not, they made the silent pact, they would take out Gamzee before he could hurt anyone.

They both knew it wasn't right to do that to Gamzee, after what they did to his moirail, but they didn't want to lose anyone. They would try to explain things. Make things up to Karkat. Apologize and grovel on their knees, if necessary. Anything to keep from a fall-out.

“Rose and Terezi were working harder than ever on finding Jade, but their powers are not like ours. They're not as easy to control, and they had trouble getting a vision. Sollux was sure he had found a trace of Jade on the meteor, but Rose insisted that she couldn't have been there. That there was no place to hide. But there must have been. I'm sure of it.” Future Dave told them. “After all, where else would Gamzee have hidden her? It has to have been him, and there is no way that he could have taken her somewhere else.”

“Maybe you overlooked one of the hiding places.” John suggested. “Maybe the entrance was in his room or something.”

“Sometimes you're a genius, Egbert.” Both Daves looked at John in wonder. That was the easiest explanation, and no one had thought of it.

“I'm going to check on that, when I go back.” Future Dave said. “Anyway, she was nowhere to be found, we were all beyond freaked out and worried. That's when Sollux got suspicious. He kept complaining that Karkat was missing, and that he was doing all the work. We all started wondering what happened to Karkat and Gamzee anyway, since they hadn't shown up for days. Sollux and I went to check on Karkat, while John went to check on Gamzee. We didn't find Karkat, but his room was a mess. Things were strewn everywhere. And there was writing on the wall. It just said “no right”, but we had no clue what that meant. We searched the entire room and the connecting hallway for him, and when we didn't find him we headed over to Gamzee's place. We thought that he might have gone there, if he had had a meltdown or something. But Gamzee wasn't there either. We figured that maybe he was, I don't know, taking a walk with Karkat or something. Doing moirail things.”

“But they were nowhere to be found.” Dave concluded. “The “no right” writings... do you think Karkat wrote those? Or was it Gamzee?”

“Don't know. I wanted to ask Karkat what was wrong when we found him, but I didn't get the chance to.” Future Dave replied. “You see, when we made it back to the lab, we waited for a while, but John didn't return. And all of a sudden, not only one, but four people had gone missing.”

**Author's Note:**

> There's isn't anything M-rated yet, but this will change in one of the later parts.
> 
> On another note: sorry for the tense and spelling mistakes.


End file.
